Museum Plaza in Ohio, United States by REX

Museum Plaza rethinks conventional attitudes towards property development. It begins with a vision to construct a contemporary art institute and concludes with a business pro forma that supports this commitment. Culture is placed physically and spiritually at the project’s center.

Located within the Ohio River’s 100-year flood plain, between a levee wall and an interstate highway, the site is a disparate set of parcels with no immediate relationship to Louisville’s Central Business District.

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The site is further complicated by a subterranean electrical utility right-of-way and several arterial streets. Convention would typically position the public program-both cultural and commercial-at street level and the profit-making towers above. This strategy is not possible at Museum Plaza, as the site would cut off any ground-level public program and position the towers implausibly close to each other.

The towers’ independence allows each to be designed and financed on its own terms, and renders the unusualness of the overall massing less consequential. By keeping the towers discrete, their dimensions and the resulting pro forma remain adjustable-like a stereo equalizer-during the project’s design.

Architects: REX
Budget:  $397.0 million
Program: 214-meter tall, 62-story skyscraper on the banks of the Ohio River
Architect Team: Christopher Agosta, David Chacon, Stephane Derveaux, Erez Ella, Selva Gurdogan, Javier Haddad, Uenal Karamuk, Vanessa Kassabian, Joshua Prince-Ramus, Alejandro Schieda, Dong-Ping Wong
Consultants: Cermak Peterka Petersen, Chris Dercon, DHV, Front, LD&D, Lord, Magnusson Klemencic, M. A. Mortenson, Newcomb & Boyd, Persohn Hahn, Tillotson Design, Transsolar